There must be a wrath of God against wilful sin, a complete disapproval of it, and all the more because God loves the sinner. God is a consuming fire for sin in us, because he loves us. That wrath cannot be propitiated, that disapproval cannot be satisfied, in any effective way, so long as the sin continues. The punishment of the sin in its inevitable consequences, will go on in the very fidelity of God. But for any real satisfaction of God, the sin itself must cease, and there must be assurance of righteousness to come. The sinner must come to share God's hatred of the sin and God's positive purpose of love. Hence the expiation of the sin, the propitiation of the wrath of God, the satisfaction of God--so far as these terms still have meaning, and so far as they express Christ's work--consist (1) in winning men to repentance, to sharing God's hatred of their sin, (2) in helping men to a real power against sin, and (3) in the assurance of perfecting righteousness which is contained in the relation to God honestly accepted by men. When, now, the unfilial spirit is thus changed into a completely filial spirit--through the fullest acceptance by the child of the father's purpose for him, and through the child's throwing himself completely open to the influence of the father--the personal relation _is_ thereby inevitably changed, personal reconciliation is achieved. It is impossible to think it otherwise. And so the chief pain in the previous relation is done away both for God and man; though the punishment, in the consequences of sin in other respects, is not thereby set aside. But, further, so far now as the power of this new personal relation to God in Christ begins actively to counteract the consequences of sin in us, as it will assuredly do, God's work in Christ becomes a direct substitute for that punishment of us that would else inevitably follow. And yet the process is wholly ethical; for the results of righteousness can actually occur in us, only in so far as we come into harmony with Christ's purpose for us. Even so far, we may believe, does the social consciousness, in its emphasis upon the mutual influence of persons go, in leading us into the secret of the attainment of character--into the heart of God's redemption of men. IV. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN OUR PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD What, now, in the second place, does the mutual influence of men for good mean for theology in the individual relation to God? Here it may be said at once, that faith is as directly contagious as character.